The Italian anonymous writer Elena Ferrante stirred up the world literary scene with the "Neapolitan Tetralogy" ("My Genius Girlfriend", "The Story of a New Name", "The Left, The Left", "The Missing Child"). Beginning in 2011, Ferrante published four novels annually, depicting the friendship and growth of two Neapolitan maidens, Lila and Lennon, and reflecting the changes of the times in Italy for half a century. As soon as the novel was published, it became a phenomenon-level hot book around the world.
The "Neapolitan Tetralogy" has been translated into China since 2017, which has also caused a sensation. By the second half of 2019, according to Ferrante's publisher, her novels had been translated into more than 45 countries, and the "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Ferrante was also hailed by The New York Times as "the best novelist of our time."
In February 2022, the third season of the series "My Genius Girlfriend", based on the novel, aired, and currently has a Douban rating of 9.6 (9.3 in the first season and 9.5 in the second season). The special photography exhibition "My Genius Girlfriend", curated and arranged by artist Chen Danqing, is also loved by millions of book fans and drama fans at muxin Art Museum in Wuzhen.
"Genius girlfriend fever" is coming again.
On the eve of the special exhibition of "My Genius Girlfriend" at the Muxin Art Museum, Chen Danqing was still watching another novel by Elena Ferrante, "The Life of An Adult Lie", which was written by Ferrante after the hit of "My Genius Girlfriend", and because of the spiritual similarity between the heroine and the "Genius Girlfriend" in "Lennon", it was regarded by fans as a prequel to the genius girlfriend. At that time, the Chinese edition of "Adults' Life of Lies" had just been published, and When it was not officially released on the Internet, Chen Danqing was almost one of the first readers.
"At the end, I suddenly cried so badly that I didn't think about it at all, and I finally understood what a girl thinks, when she is no longer a virgin. No one had ever written about this feeling before, and I cried very sadly. He eagerly reads the end of the novel as he gets into bed, where 17-year-old Jovana decides to say goodbye to her virginity and, in a calm, direct, almost cruel way, breaks into a complex, dangerous world that adults rely on constant lying to maintain. This is the inevitable and difficult experience of every young girl to go alone, but it makes a male reader in his late seventy years cry, and then the old tears get up to wash his face.
"When Ferrante appeared in the novelist's house, I thanked her very much, and she told me what girls think, and men never figured it out." Chen Danqing said that in his past reading experience, he could not remember who could write about women so deeply. He wrote to Ferrante, saying: "Read your book and you will surprise Dostoevsky and Tolstoy."
Big hit
The editor-in-charge of My Genius Girlfriend, Somalia, had just come into contact with the book, in her third year from the media, and had just done six or seven books, almost all of which were serious and pure literary works, including Ondaji's The Ghost of Anil and Primo Levy's Periodic Table of Elements. But "My Genius Girlfriend" brings a completely different reading experience, almost popular. Ferrante seems to have deliberately chosen this kind of ground-to-earth writing after careful consideration, the purpose of which is to attract the maximum readership.
"When I got the manuscript of this book in 2014, I read the English version, and at that time I had insufficient publishing experience, so I felt that the first book was written by children, little girls between the ages of 9 and 14, and the pace of story advancement was also very slow, and the acceptance and appreciation of this subject in the Chinese market was very weak." So I said at the time that the first book was more difficult to pry. ”
But the Jiujiu reader insisted on buying the rights to the four-volume "My Genius Girlfriend" in China, a decision that was not difficult, compared to those who sold well, Ferrante's Chinese royalties were not high, but she had clearly stirred up international word-of-mouth: the New York Times described her as "the best novelist of our time"; the Financial Times named her The Woman of the Year; The Economist magazine considered the "Neapolitan tetralogy" shocking; the Guardian, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, and the Times Literary Supplement. The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and other important media outlets have reported on this phenomenon, believing that this outstanding and mysterious Italian writer has the magic to envelop people and the hypnotic talent.
"The degree to which this book opened to me was quite unique, and when I read the second book, I suddenly understood what kind of work it was, and the degree to which it could open up to the reader was definitely not an isolated case." Somalia said her concerns disappeared almost immediately, "When I read the second book, I fell completely into it, and I saw that the power it exuded was very powerful, and as an editor, you had to respond to this power." ”
Cloak of invisibility
After the "Neapolitan Tetralogy" became an international bestseller, Elena Ferrante was named to Time magazine's list of "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2016. In October of the same year, an Italian journalist named Claudio Gatti wrote in the New York Review of Books claiming that he had discovered Ferrante's true identity and listing a series of evidence. He received remittance records from the publishers of the Neapolitan series from informants, including one author whose income soared dramatically, and the timeline of the surge coincided with the novel's popularity.
People have always been curious about Ferrante's true identity, but this time the reporter's disclosure of the secret is not welcome. Ferrante's publisher Sandro Ferry said he was shocked by Claudio Gatti's behavior: Why bother a female writer who just wants to write a book and doesn't want to be in the limelight?
"To rummaging through the wallet of a writer who is determined to avoid the public, I think this approach to journalism is shameful." As one of the very few who knew Ferrante's identity, Ferry staunchly defended the anonymity of mystery writers. All one knows is that when Ferrante sent her debut novel, Annoying Love, to the Ferryes, she had offered to write in a completely anonymous way: no readers' meetings, no signings, no salons, and no face-to-face interviews. There is no doubt that trust and friendship have been established between her and the publisher, and the Ferryes love her book and are willing to accept this unique arrangement.
At the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, there was a gathering of Ferrant's publishers in different countries around the world, and Somalia, as the editor in charge of the Chinese edition, was also invited, "Everyone on the spot, probably dozens of Ferrante publishers, all of them were very tacit, and no one inquired and mentioned these gossip." After the New York Review of Books published its report, all the media were criticizing this kind of behavior of the New York Review of Books, thinking that this was pickpocketing, meaningless, and we spontaneously didn't talk about these scraps, all about her work, her publication in various countries. ”
Ferrante gave only limited written interviews, and in response to several questions about anonymity, she mentioned a growing line of thought in the publishing world, that is, to first consider whether the author is a charismatic person and whether he has the potential to become a public figure, which not only increases the sales volume of the work, but may even directly determine the publisher's willingness to publish. An implicit tendency is that an author, all his/her experiences, looks, emotions, and personalities, will also become things that are packaged and sold with the work.
"Is there a way to protect the rights of authors? Can an author choose that only what he writes is 'public'? Ferrante asked rhetorically in response to an interview with a critic.
"It is up to the author to support his work, to mix the author with the content of the book. I feel ashamed of this practice. She went on to write, "A man is very free when he is writing, if he knows that he does not have to show his face for this work." That's why I'm defending a corner of my own. I have tried, and if this corner is stripped, I will soon become barren. ”
Broken thoughts
"I feel like I'm working with a ghost." Saverio Costanzo, director of the first and second seasons of "My Genius Girlfriend," said. During the filming of "My Genius Girlfriend," he spent two and a half years communicating with Ferrante through a publishing house.' In the exchange of letters, he sensed Ferrante's character, "She is very, very serious, demanding, not only a great writer, but also a great screenwriter." But she is fair, just and inclusive. ”
Ferrante did not demand that the series must be faithful to the novel, she encouraged the director, "You decide that the image you make of Lila and Lennon, the closer they are to your imagination, the closer they are to my imagination." But she is the kind of original author who will make detailed annotations on all the draft scripts, and strive to the end for the plot that she thinks needs to be modified, no matter how humble and polite the communication tone is, how much she takes care of the other party's emotions, she is ultimately deeply involved in the re-creation of the story."
This isn't the first time Costanzo has seen her strength and fairness. As early as 2007, Costanzo contacted Ferrante to obtain the rights to an adaptation of her novel The Lost Daughter.
Ferrante did not immediately agree. She asked Costanzo to come up with a satisfactory adaptation within six months, and six months later, Costanzo had to give up the fight for the adaptation rights. Nine years later, when HBO was preparing for the episode "My Genius Girlfriend" in 2016, Costanzo became one of the candidate directors, and the publisher told him that it was Ferrante's recommendation that gave him the opportunity.
"I had a hunch that I was going to get into a somewhat ridiculous and a little awkward situation: I wrote my own story, someone else wrote it again, and I became a reader of the story. Through his words, I imagine what I have imagined, experienced, and recorded in words. Ferrante wrote, "In short, I will be a reader of my readers... How will I react? I don't know yet. Ferrante was clearly the kind of sensitive, thoughtful, fragmented author, diligent and old-fashioned, suffering from his own inner drama. By the time her debut film, Annoying Love, was brought to the screen, she had already endured such a test. She sincerely promised her adaptors to let it go, but immediately listed more than a dozen changes to the script, detailing the reasons for the changes. The movie was actually released, and she refused to watch it, and of course did not participate in any publicity. Later, she couldn't help but go to see it, and after reading it, she wrote a long letter to the director, expressing a very strong sense of hindsight. But in the end, the letter was not sent.
Dark power
"My Genius Girlfriend" has a large time span, many characters, just the roles of childhood, director Savirio Costanzo and the crew interviewed nearly 9,000 children around Naples, and finally, they found Lennon with a pair of sensitive eyes, and Lila, who was full of angular edges, the two heroines' childhood and youth actors are ordinary people, no acting experience, the high-intensity training camp and full plot before the performance remedied all this, they quickly convinced the audience.
Costanzo said that during the filming of one of the important scenes, two Chinese girls who had come to Italy for sightseeing passed by their set, and when they saw the large black and white wedding photos hanging in the shoe store, they immediately became very excited, pointing to the photo and shouting: Lila! That's Lila!
"It touched me a lot." Costanzo says it makes him feel real that My Genius Girlfriend already has a huge readership all over the world. This is also another piece of evidence of how the casting of the series hits the spiritual temperament of the protagonist of the novel at a glance. Two Chinese girls tell him they are obsessed with everything about Lila, including her hairstyle and outfit.
In Costanzo's understanding, Lila is more of a symbolic figure, a deified, omnipotent woman, like a dark power. For him, the hardest part of the adaptation is abridgement, in order to focus on the dramatic conflict of the series, it is necessary to delete the branches, and in a good novel, the secondary characters are often quite brilliant, so the trade-off is extremely difficult. Another difficulty in shooting is the bed scene, many sex scenes in the original work, all contain the subtext of gender and power, how to use film and television language, balanced presentation of metaphorical power and even violence, is a great test.
After becoming the Big Fan of "My Genius Girlfriend", Chen Danqing decided to exhibit "My Genius Girlfriend" at muxin Art Museum, which is a special exhibition of photography and video, showing stills of the genius girlfriend, on-set tidbits, and documentaries related to shooting, and in the most prominent position in the exhibition hall, Lila's wedding stills are exhibited. To accompany the special exhibition, curator Chen Danqing organized an online conversation with director Kostanzo, actor Alba Rohrwacher, Italian film critic Marco Müller, and director of the Cultural Division of the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai, where nearly 3 million Chinese viewers watched the live broadcast, not counting the data from later replays — a staggering number, perhaps among the two girls who called Lila's name in Italy.
Director Savirio Costanzo (left) on set
Old sister
Italy is a bit like Chen Danqing's enclave, because of the documentary "Partial" filming of the Italian Renaissance frescoes, he traveled to Italy many times, walking through the ancient and modern towns. Memories are superimposed repeatedly: as a teenager he copied drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; to a greater extent, the Neorealist italian cinema, which was almost his spiritual ration. One of the reasons he loves My Genius Girlfriend is that the series makes him feel like Europe is back.
"In my youth and middle age, I was an admirer of Italian Neorealism and French New Wave cinema. They not only influenced me, but also influenced Chinese post-50s and post-60s film directors. But in my later years, I became a fan of American and British dramas. I'm like today's young people, and over the past 20 years, I believe that I've watched 500 or so episodes of British and American dramas, and I'll miss Italy at this time. Where am I saying Europe? Where are the Germans, the French, the Italians? Why haven't they come up with a movie as good as before? How happy I was when the 'genius girlfriend' showed up and Italy was back! In this play, I see that the charm and energy of neorealism are completely there. Chen Danqing said that he was almost looking at the series as an extended version of the movie.
He watched the episodes of the first two seasons first, and then followed the original novel, and to his surprise, the novel and the series were equally gripping. "I didn't want to read a novel, I always thought it would be two different things, I was a visual animal. You know that at my age, I don't read novels, whether foreign or domestic, 20th century novels I either can't read, or read and forget, I read the genius girlfriend's novel, found very powerful, from the first word to the last word, four volumes all read. ”
The first season was filmed on location
Chen Danqing absolutely believed that Ferrante was a contemporary of himself, probably slightly older than himself, and the Post-World War II Naples she described in the book completely reminded him of his childhood. The small town block of Naples corresponds to the Shikumen Lane in Shanghai, the Italian gangster corresponds to the Hooligans in Shanghai, the neighbors are steaming and messy, and they fight a lot without a word, including the subsequent changes of the times, frequent social movements, and class reshuffles, which are completely similar to the folk ecology. He wrote to Ferrante through the publishing house, and involuntarily praised her, and did not feel anything numb, because the intimacy and fireworks provided in the novel made him feel that he was simply praising an old sister, an old friend, rather than a stranger who had never met in a distant ocean.
"Her novels made me love Italy for one more reason, and I had loved its art before, which was not right. Because people are a country, living in life, there are all kinds of disasters, just like all countries. Art glorified my imagination of Italy, but Ferrante showed me that I had another reason to love Italy, just as I loved my country. ”
Chen Danqing at the exhibition site
survivor
Painter Peng Wei was the first to recommend "My Genius Girlfriend" to Chen Danqing, and she once believed that in the 21st century, film and television have largely replaced literature, and people are relishing to watch season after season of dramas, just like people in the 19th century are pursuing novels. But the "Neapolitan Quadrilogy" upended her perception. "I watched the play first, then read the novel, and found that literature is actually more powerful. Watching American dramas for a long time once made me despise novels, but my genius girlfriend let me know that truly outstanding novels could not be replaced, and the power of literature emerged. That kind of inner complexity, the image is difficult to present, the image directly gives you a result, gives you the picture and richness. Words are abstract, words have space for you to make associations, and this association is related to yourself, you will project yourself into it. The more the 'Neapolitan Quadrilogy' is written, the better it is, the penmanship is amazing, and when you see the third and fourth volumes, it is simply creepy. ”
When planning marketing copy for My Genius Girlfriend, the first volume of the Neapolitan Quadrilogy, in Somalia, she used the keyword "female friendship and women's war," which set the tone for later feminist discussions about the book. "I mean it, and we want to use the most direct and unvarnished means to show the Chinese market those who might have despised this subject as much as I did."
But when "Naples" reached the fourth volume, The Missing Child, the cover quote read: "My whole life is just a vulgar struggle to elevate social status." ”
This is Ferrante's self-condition borrowed from the heroine's mouth, and it also points out the real purpose of the book. Rather than a feminist novel, it is better to say that this is a political theme novel that hopes to find the fundamental motives behind social change, class change, and chaotic governance, and the author weaves into the longitude and latitude of the historical torrent in the growth history of the two young girls, and is truly a person who has established a legacy for the great era.
Muxin Art Museum's 2021 Special Exhibition "My Genius Girlfriend - When Literature Becomes Film and Television"
Lennon tries to achieve bottom-up through knowledge, to occupy language, and to use the existing social order (including marriage); her genius girlfriend Lila, who is much more thorough and fierce, re-establishes order by destroying, subverting, and exploiting human desires. - "Evil will always emerge from under the floor." From the time she was a child, Lila had insight into the laws of the jungle that really worked in the world, and just as she could quickly find verbs in Latin, she had warned the nerd Lennon early on: "It's always the people below who want to come up, and the people above don't want them to come up." Queen Dido, who appears frequently in the novel, is a key to understanding Lila's symbolic character.
Lennon was a survivor of this struggle, and her survival was built on Lila's destruction. After destroying evil in an evil way, Lila herself is also eaten by evil, just like the dragon slayer boy finally becomes a new dragon. And Lennon, and the system of civilized ethics she represented, was once again the recipient of the fruits of the victory of the revolution.
Lila erased herself in her own way, and Lennon had to prove by writing who would win to the end. The finale arrives with a breath of cool air, and the doll, which has disappeared since childhood, is sent back to Lennon, completing the final buckle in this thrilling conspiracy closed loop.